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I love these animated gifs and wanted to try something like that myself. I did a photoshoot a couple of months ago and used a fog machine to create a misty background. It would be cool to show the mist swirling around in a short animated gif. The original photo had some mist, but I wanted to add some more in Photoshop and then animate it.

Original:

Original Photo

Animated:

Fog Animation Effect

Photoshop CS5

Level of difficulty: Intermediate. You should be familiar with working with layers, resizing images and using the warp tool.

Create the mist layers:

(Click on the screen shots to zoom)

Create a blank layer above the edited/retouched photo

Paint some mist on the blank layer & name the layer Mist 1. I used these mist brushes by SpiritSighs.

Mist Brushes

Copy the layer, name it Mist 2 and warp it using Edit => Transform => Warp. You can warp the mist to make it look like it has drifted around.

Copy the warped layer and repeat with another warp (Mist 3).

Copy the above layer and warp it again (Mist 4). You will now have the original image plus four mist layers above it. Click on Fig. 1 to expand.

Fig. 1 Layer palette with mist layers

Create the Animation Frames:

Select the 5 layers and open the animation window (Window => animation - Fig. 2). Make sure you are in frame view (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2 Opening the Animation Window

Fig. 3 Animation window in frame view

Click on the frame and duplicate it by dragging it to the new frame icon. Repeat this four times to give a total of 5 frames (Fig. 4 & 5).

Fig. 4 Duplicating the frame

Fig. 5 Duplicating the frame

Click on the first frame. Go to the layers panel and make only the base layer (retouch) visible (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Click on the eye to hide, click again to reveal layer

Click on the second frame and make the retouch layer on the Mist 1 layer visible using the layers panel

Click on the third frame and make the base layer & the Mist 2 layer visible.

Click on the fourth frame and make the base layer & the Mist 3 layer visible

Click on the fifth frame & make the base layer & the Mist 4 layer visible

Select all 5 frames by clicking on the first and Shift-Clicking on the last one.

Change the frame delay time to 0.1 (Fig. 7) You can try different timings depending on what works best for your project.

Fig. 7 Change frame delay

Tween the animation to make it run more smoothly

Click on the first frame and Shift-click on the second frame

Go to the animation menu and choose Tween... (Fig. 8)

Fig. 8 Animation Menu

Enter 10 in the "frames to add box" and select all layers, and position & opacity (Fig. 9)

Tween the first and second frames as before. This makes the animation smoothly cycle back to the beginning.

Make sure the repeat mode is "Forever"

Save everything!

Check it out - when you press the play button you will have a pretty smooth animation!

Save the animated gif

Resize the image to the size that you want (I used a height of 375 pixels because it gave me a file size under 2 MB). Go to Image => Image Size and select the size that you want, making sure to lock the aspect ratio.

Go to File => Save for Web & Devices.

Set to "forever"

Select Gif and Save (Fig. 11)

Fig. 11 Saving the GIF

To view the animated gif, open it with your browser.

I'm looking forward to doing some more of these animations and have lots of ideas for future shoots! If you have tried it, please share by posting a link in the comments section.

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This video shows how I retouched a photo to give it a vintage 1940's - 1950's pin-up art look using Lightroom 3.3 and Photoshop CS4. The basic technique is in this video tutorial on 1950's pin-up effects on Planet Photoshop, but with some modifications since I used a low-key dark background but the Planet Photoshop tutorial used a high key photo.

The techniques include:

skin smoothing with the surface blur filter

using layers & blend modes

layer masks

making selections using luminosity

digital makeup

using the photocopy filter

merging & copying layers

dodging & burning by using curve adjustment layers

Have you done pin-up photography? Please share your links and any techniques in the comments section - thanks!

I am a freelance photographer located in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. I'm passionate about photography and will work with you to get that shot that makes you go "wow!". Anything from portrait to glamour and fashion, and edgy conceptual shoots. I'm open to ideas and love collaborative work. My goal is to get that shot that will blow you away!
Check out my portfolio!I am a freelance photographer located in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. I'm passionate about photography and will work with you to get that shot that makes you go "wow!". Anything from portrait to glamour and fashion, and edgy conceptual shoots. I'm open to ideas and love collaborative work. My goal is to get that shot that will blow you away!

Check out my portfolio!I am following my passion for photography! After 19 years working in the corporate world as a scientist, approved I made the switch to running my own photography business in 2009. As a kid I was developing my own film and printing my photos, view and later I got more serious with a 35mm camera. I bought my first digital camera in 1999 and love both film and digital today. In 2007, troche I started taking photography courses at Langara College, one of the top photography programs in Canada. I expect to complete the program by the end of the 2010.

Check out my portfolio!I am a freelance photographer located in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. I'm passionate about photography and will work with you to get that shot that makes you go "wow!". Anything from portrait to glamour and fashion, and edgy conceptual shoots. I'm open to ideas and love collaborative work. My goal is to get that shot that will blow you away!

Check out my portfolio!I am following my passion for photography! After 19 years working in the corporate world as a scientist, approved I made the switch to running my own photography business in 2009. As a kid I was developing my own film and printing my photos, view and later I got more serious with a 35mm camera. I bought my first digital camera in 1999 and love both film and digital today. In 2007, troche I started taking photography courses at Langara College, one of the top photography programs in Canada. I expect to complete the program by the end of the 2010.

In this video I show you how I do basic retouching on a beauty portrait, including cleaning up blemishes on the skin, removing stray hairs, brightening up the eyes, retouching lipstick and smoothing the skin using Adobe Lightroom 3.2 and Photoshop CS4. The final image is still very natural looking and does not look like it has been significantly altered.